


Unplanned

by frostmrajick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Friendship/Love, Suicide Attempt, but will get better!, like really major serious depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2420732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostmrajick/pseuds/frostmrajick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas becomes human, and he can't deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unplanned

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Dean saw Castiel and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. The man lay on the blood stained sheets, still as a corpse. Perhaps he was one.  
The thought jolted him. No, no, no, he wasn’t, Dean thought, moving. His body moved without him. He ran to Castiel, scooped him into his arms. He reached to feel for a pulse, but there was too much blood in the way, so he found his hand on Castiel’s heart instead, feeling desperately for the thump-thump that signaled life.  
“Sam!” he screamed, so loud, it hurt his throat.  
His brother was there in an instant. It only took him another instant to realize what was happening. His brother had always been smarter than him, Dean knew that, knew it now that all he could do was hold Castiel’s motionless body while Sam called nine-one-one, told them something, Dean couldn’t hear what over the noise—oh, that was him, moaning.  
He couldn’t lose Cas.

He had actually saved himself. Taking the pills and the alcohol, both in such amounts as to kill him alone, combined had been a suicide attempt in itself. But by slitting his wrists, the decreased blood flow actually slowed his heart, slowed it as it pumped the poison through his system. By the time the doctors finished bandaging his arms, they had discovered the toxic mix, and had pumped it out of him.  
Well, they had pumped what they could. What he was feeling, he was beginning to see that nothing could ever take that out of him.

When Cas woke up, Dean was there. He hadn’t moved since Cas had been transferred to the unit. In his experience, there was nothing more depressing than waking up in a hospital alone, and after what Cas had done, Dean figured he couldn’t afford to be the least bit depressing.  
“How you doing?” Dean asked softly.  
Cas’s eyes flicked over to him, then back to the center. It was the only response he got.  
Dean sighed and leaned forward. “Okay, I get it, stupid question. Obviously you’re…not great.” He shook his head. “But really, Cas? Why? Don’t you know I—“ he hesitated, then figured he had nothing to lose by saying it. “Don’t you know I can’t afford to lose you?” he asked, damning himself for the crack in his voice as he spoke.  
Cas sighed softly. “It had nothing to do with you,” he said, voice only a faint whisper.  
“You’re my friend. Hell, you’re practically a brother to me. If you’re feeling that bad, it has everything to do with me. So tell me, Cas, why? I think I deserve to know.”  
Cas closed his eyes, and for a minute, Dean thought he had fallen asleep again, too tired to continue to talk, or so stubborn he had actually willed himself to sleep to avoid the question. Finally, though, the ex-angel answered. “Why not? After what I did…why should I continue existing? Why shouldn’t I be punished?”  
Hell, he meant. He wanted to go to Hell. Dean didn’t know how to respond to that.  
“You—you had good intentions,” he said slowly. “You didn’t mean to, you wanted to help. It’s not like you wanted to release hell on earth, or take over the world. You wanted people to be free. You wanted to help your friends.”  
“It’s not the road to Heaven that’s paved with good intentions. We saw what happened, what I…what I did. That’s all that matters.”  
Dean moved to kneel beside the hospital bed. “No, Cas,” he said hoarsely. “What matters is that you have friends who care about you, who would hate to see you go. After everything I’ve lost, I don’t think I could stand to lose you, too.”  
“I am not worth it,” Cas said, and Dean’s heat broke from the conviction in his voice.

Dean should’ve known something was up when Sam and Bobby stopped talking when he approached, though to be fair, it wasn’t like he didn’t have other things on his mind. “How is he?” asked Sam.  
Dean shook his head. “Honestly? I don’t know. He’s pretty messed up. I don’t know if he’s going to be okay. He’s definitely in no shape to handle everything coming after him.”  
Sam and Bobby looked at each other. “About that,” Sam began. “Me and Bobby have been talking and…we think we should let the angels have Castiel.”  
Dean looked disbelievingly from him to Bobby and back. “Guys,” he said, “they’ll kill him. Worse!”  
“It’s an angel thing, though,” Sam pointed out. “We should let them handle it.”  
“That’s never been an issue before,” Dean countered.  
“Castiel’s never done anything like this before,” Bobby argued.  
“He already feels bad enough—“  
“Exactly,” Sam said. “He knows he did some bad stuff, that he should face the consequences—“  
“You say that like he deserves to be punished.”  
Neither Sam and Bobby answered, which was answer enough. “He is our friend,” Dean said quietly. “Yeah, he did some bad stuff, but he did some good stuff, too. Friends forgive. Just like,” he said, looking at Sam, “I forgave you for drinking demon blood, and running around with Ruby.” Sam flinches, and Dean knows it’s a low blow, but so is betrayal. “And just like,” he added, “you forgave me for what I did in Hell. Just like Cas forgave us.  
“He tried to kill himself. What he’s feeling right now, believe me, he doesn’t deserve anything worse.”  
Sam looked away, and Dean knew that, despite his speech, his brother wasn’t convinced. He probably never would be. And okay, Dean was the older brother, which meant between him and Sam, he was always right, but there was Bobby, too, and it didn’t take much to see that Bobby was on Sam’s side. Which meant that Dean and Cas were screwed.

Cas was Dean’s friend, though, and if there was one thing that could be said for Dean, it was that he was loyal to a fault. You didn’t mess with his family or friends, not if you valued your life.  
Of course, the problem here was that it was his family trying to mess with his friend. The usual methods—stay and fight like hell—wouldn’t work. So he decided he had to take the only other option, one he hated but the only one that might, maybe, hopefully, probably-not-at-least-not-forever-but-we-gotta-do-something, work. Run.  
“Hey, Cas, wake up, man,” he said, shaking the ex-angel. He eyed the wires running into the man, wondering if disconnecting any of them would be life-threatening, deciding that it’s probably worth the risk, anyway.  
Cas rose slowly from sleep, opening his eyes groggily. “Dean?” he murmurs.  
Dean tried to smile reassuringly. “Hey, buddy. I need you to work with me here for a second, ‘kay? I’m here to bust you out.”  
Cas shook his head slowly, but didn’t say anything, so Dean decided he was just tired, and wouldn’t fight him. “We gotta move fast, though, ‘cause people don’t really like it when you try to walk out of a hospital without their go-ahead, and we really don’t want to make a big scene. In fact, we want to make as small a scene as possible. A microscopic, tiny, invisible scene…” he trailed off, because he’s babbling, and you only babbled when you were nervous, and he has no reason to be nervous because goddamn it, this is going to work.  
“No, Dean,” Cas said as Dean finished disconnecting him and tried to help him up. “Leave me. Go.”  
“No way,” Dean told him. “It’s you and me all the way, right? Whatever happens. I’m gonna help you.” He swallowed. “Just like you helped me.”  
Cas hesitated, then put his arm around Dean and allowed himself to be helped up. He winced as he stood, but voiced no complaint. Dean’s first thought was that he was used to worse pain, that this was nothing, but then he remembered the circumstances of the hospital visit and wondered if Cas saw any pain as his due punishment. He made a note to pick up some painkillers as soon as he had the chance.  
“Okay, good, now try to look natural,” Dean said, wanting to kick himself for the words. Right, because this was all perfectly natural and normal.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I have issues with Cas and depression. These are older stories of mine, from a time when I was there. Do I need to say that if you feel it, get help? No matter what, to someone, you're worth saving.


End file.
